TGIF: A good Friday to everyone and a welcome new readers. It’s Sept. 11, our National Day of Service and Remembrance. It’s also National Hot Crossed Buns Day. Other countries may not understand it, but that’s the exact sort of juxtaposition that defines American exceptionalism.

AS WE MARK SEPT. 11: The Port Authority is running out of Twin Towers steel, which has been carefully given out for memorials in all 50 states and several countries, not to mention 7.5 tons that went into the hull of the USS New York. Applications are pending for more, but they’re down to 30 pieces, Crain’s reports.

STILL DEALING: North Shore-LIJ and Humana announced a value-based contract that will cover 1,000 Medicare Advantage members. The contract will begin Jan. 1. North Shore-LIJ will coordinate Humana members’ care through North Shore-LIJ Premium, its preferred provider network. LIJ says it now has 30 full-risk, pay-for-performance or shared service agreements covering about 300,000 people.

CONTENT MANAGEMENT: Cablevision inked a multi-year deal to air Tribune Media’s general entertainment cable network, WGN America. As part of the arrangement, Cablevision acquired the final 2.8 percent of Newsday.

HEAR ME: Huntington-based Teq has inked another distribution deal, this time for Audio Enhancement’s classroom listening technology. (I never had a problem hearing Sister Mary Benedicta. Just saying.)

HOUSEKEEPING: The InnovateLI website will go dark early Saturday morning as our host and sponsor, Web Air, does some upgrades. Could affect readers in the 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. window. You know who you are.

LISTENING POST: Digital Fly, a just-launching real-time social media monitoring and alert service for schools, has sign on former Symbol Technologies boss Sal Iannuzzi as CEO. Digital’s founder, Derek Peterson, serves as CTO.

MISSING OUT: The number of American teenagers with summer jobs continued its two-decade drop this year, as kids opted for career-related internships over low-pay burger flipping. Recession-ravaged adults have also scooped up many positions, and automation has done away with more.

Question: Can young people succeed without the knowledge we gained from life on the bottom rung? A tough call.

MAKING THE GRADE: Stony Brook University topped all local competition in the annual U.S. News & World Report college ranking. But Farmingdale is a comer.

THE DEBRIEF: Meet Alexander Gann, dean of all 41 students at the Watson School of Biological Sciences doctoral program.

VISIT US: Between newsletters, check out breaking news at InnovateLI.com. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook.

ABOUT OUR SPONSOR: The Long Island Business Development Council has helped build the regional economy for more than 45 years by bringing together government economic development officials, developers, financial experts and others for education, debate and networking. For details on the group’s annual Montauk retreat, which begins Sept. 30, visit libdc.org.

EVENTS: Innovate LI’s first awards breakfast – celebrating Long Island’s best and brightest ideas – is set for Oct. 21. Winners to be announced next week. Sponsorships still available, tables going now. Reach out at events@innovateli.com or call 516-314-8982.

And: A surprising number of you wanted to know how to act properly at an art show.

ELSEWHERE

REALLY? “HR specialist” is the fastest-growing job in the nation, with an annual growth rate of 18.1 percent from 2009 to 2014, according to analysis by NYBJ.

FINDING ITS WAY: CartoDB, the hot Brooklyn-based mapping company we told you about last month, raised $23M in new funding from Silicon Valley venture-capital firm Accel Partners and the VC arm of Salesforce.

SUN COUNTRY: Monroe County is eyeing two giant solar farms that would put it just behind Long Island in terms of output. Together, the farms are expected to generate 11 megawatts of electricity annually, or enough to power 2,000 homes.

IT’S OFFICIAL: SBA advocate Teresa Coaxum has declared that “People don’t think about the region this way, but I’d like to say that Western New York and Buffalo are synonymous with technology.”

SPIN CYCLE: Developers of the New York Ferris Wheel being built on Staten Island plan to use crowdfunding to reach their $500M financial goal.

THEY’RE SICK OVER THIS: Lifetime Healthcare disclosed this week that it was hacked in early August, putting at risk the personal info of as many as 10.5M customers. The company operates in the Buffalo region as Univera and serves Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton and Utica as Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.

DOLLARS AND SCENTS: The hotel industry is trying to cash in on olfactory branding by placing so-called “happy smells” in rooms and lobbies. The top 10: freshly baked bread, clean bed sheets, freshly mown grass, fresh flowers, freshly ground coffee, fresh air after rainfall, vanilla, chocolate, frying bacon and fish and chips. Research suggests we remember 35% of what we smell, compared with only 5% of what we see and 2% of what we hear.

Not sure about fish and chips, but they had me at “frying bacon.”

SQUARE DEALS: A look inside Union Square Ventures’ incredible track record of success, including investments in Zynga, Twitter and Etsy. The basics: USV gets in early and stays late. (As a result, it made 375X on its Etsy stake.)

FAST MONEY: Boston-based Silversmith Capital Partners, a private equity firm founded earlier this year by former managing directors at Bain Capital Ventures and Spectrum Equity, has closed on a $460M fund. Ramp time: Three months.

NO THREAT, THEY HOPE: A group of French researchers are planning to re-animate a 30,000-year-old Mollivirus sibericumvirus discovered beneath the Siberian permafrost.

HE’LL FIT RIGHT IN: John McAfee built one of the largest antivirus companies ever, then moved to a remote island, then became a fugitive, since cleared. Now, he’s running for president.

PARTY BOAT: The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum is applying for three state permits to serve liquor, beer and wine on its open-air pier, inside the ship’s mess hall and in the welcome center.

PUMPED UP: The U.S. average retail price for regular gasoline was $2.51 per gallon on Aug. 31, the lowest price for the Monday before Labor Day since 2004, and 95 cents per gallon lower than the same time last year. http://bit.ly/1hR8kzd

GET READY FOR NEXT YEAR: Every August, the world’s longest yard sale runs for nearly 700 miles along a mostly vertical line connecting Alabama and Michigan.

EARTH, A LOVE SONG: Remember We Are The World? Now, some of music’s biggest stars have recorded a Love Song to the Earth for the U.N. climate conference in December. Included: Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Leona Lewis, Sheryl Crow, Fergie and UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelique Kidjo. It’s available for download now from iTunes and Apple Music. http://bit.ly/1KAQHR3

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